


Thirteen and A Half Christmases

by magicrainbows



Series: Christmases with LoVe [2]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Burnt Marshmallow, Burnt marshmallows, Christmas, Christmas Love, Domestic Bliss, F/M, Fluff, Happily Ever After, Love, family life, holiday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25457311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicrainbows/pseuds/magicrainbows
Summary: So yeah, I watched a bunch of (horrible) Hallmark Christmas movies while writing this.  And I couldn't remember which one it is the ex boyfriend gets kicked by the reindeer in, but I don't like the boyfriend in the one where Hilarie Burton has the Naughty & Nice list, so I just combined them.  (And the boyfriend in the Hilarie Burton one deserves to be kicked, anyway.)  I think this is going to be a trilogy. I see one more piece to this saga.
Relationships: Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Series: Christmases with LoVe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843891
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38
Collections: LoVe In The Time Of Quarantine





	Thirteen and A Half Christmases

“Shhhhhhhh!” Veronica hushed Logan when he came in the door. “You wake those twins and you won't live to see another orgasm!”

“I wouldn't risk it,” he kissed her and set his bag and jacket down. 

“How was your meeting?”

“Everyone wore a mask. It was like a cross between The Purge and one of those medical nightmares you have as a kid where they harvest your organs and leave you to die in a bathtub.”

“I certainly hope the kids get my imagination.” Veronica motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen. “Did you wear the Spider-Man one? Or Darth Vader?”

“I wanted the job, Veronica. I wore the dirty one you got me.”

“Logan, you didn’t!”

“Shhhhhhh,” He hushed her back, laughing. “I wore the Golden Gate Bridge one.”

“So you think you got it?”

“I have a pretty good hunch I did. Can I please buy us annual Disney passes and the timeshare thing now?”

“Maybe when the parks open for real.” She looked in the fridge and sighed. “Should we just get something delivered for lunch? It's so hot.”

They agreed on salads and sandwiches from a local place Logan loved and after checking on the girls, settled in the living room to wait for their food.

“I'm still kind of offended my work isn't considered “essential”,” Veronica rolled her eyes and turned the tv on quietly.

“I'm glad. We're both home most days. Makes this crazy time a little less crazy.”

“I'm still unsure about moving back here,” she stopped on a rerun of Scrubs. “Although New York is crazy and scary right now, too.”

“I thought you wanted the girls to be near your dad.”

“I do. And I love that they're getting to grow up close to the beach, and know our friends, I'm just…..”

“What?”

She pouted. “Hot.”

Logan laughed. “It's hotter in New York today than it is here.”

“No way.”

“Google it.”

“I believe you,” she said defensively.

“You don't though.”

Veronica grabbed her phone off the table and checked the weather. “Son of a bitch.”

Logan grinned. “Told you. And the heat in the city always seemed to hang more than it does here.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” bored with Scrubs, she started looking for something else to watch.

“Leave this on,” Logan said when she stopped on Pop.

“House? Really?”

“It’s a good show, right?” He shrugged. “Don't you think the Australian doctor is cute? The one that plays a cop now?”

“Fireman,” she corrected and Logan laughed.

“Quiet!” Veronica hit him in the ribs. “Sleeping babies.”

“You know they're thirteen months old today.”

“I know.”

“And it's July first.”

“Yes, I can read a calendar.”

“So I had an idea--”

They were interrupted by a text that their food had arrived. Logan always tipped an extra fifty if they remembered not to ring the bell. Veronica retrieved it while Logan finished rating and tipping the guy on the app.

“Kitchen or stay here?” She asked.

“Kitchen. I don't wanna watch a medical show while I'm eating.”

They ate right out of the containers and when Veronica’s phone rang, she looked at it, rolled her eyes and put it down.

“Delena again?” He asked and she nodded. “I cannot believe she keeps calling you.”

“Why she thinks I’d try to talk my dad into getting back together with her is beyond me. I’ve never liked her.”

“And I always thought that feeling was mutual.”

“Oh it is! She can’t stand me. Couldn’t from the first time we met.”

Logan grinned. “You came to see me just to escape her.”

“I came because I missed you. Escaping my future stepmonster was just a bonus.”

They were half done with lunch when Veronica asked Logan what his idea was.

“What idea?”

“Before the food came, you said, ‘So I had an idea,’ and then we came in here.”

“Oh, that. Well, according to the radio, Christmas in July is in full swing.”

“Where?”

“Hobby Lobby? Hallmark channel?” He guessed. “Anyway, I thought that since we're stuck in here all day, you might want to open all your old gifts.”

She shook her head and took his pickle. “No.”

“Veronica--”

“I open one every Christmas.”

“Wouldn't you rather have a clean slate this year? Especially since it's the first year the girls will really be aware of it all.”

Veronica thought about this as she chewed. Though she still put away a gift from Logan every year to open in the future, she had opened an old gift every Christmas for the past five years. She didn't go in order and so far had gotten a tennis bracelet, a talking leg lamp from A Christmas Story, photos of the house he’d built for her, pajamas with elves engaging in sex acts all over them and a framed, blown-up print of a photograph she’d taken of them together the summer before they started Hearst.

“Just the last three old ones,” she finally relented.

Logan took off to get them, and Veronica took the opportunity to try his tortellini pasta salad and look in on the girls again. Savannah was sound asleep but Serena was wriggling around. She'd be up within the hour and then so would her sister. Normally Veronica wouldn’t let them nap this long, but they had taken turns waking up all night and wouldn’t go down, so a four-hour late morning/early afternoon nap seemed fine to her.

When Veronica got back to the kitchen, six gifts were at her place. 

“Logan,” she warned.

“Unopened birthday gifts,” he pointed to the different wrapping paper. “May as well dig into them all.”

Veronica saved the smallest boxes for last. Twenty minutes later, the table was strewn with ribbon and paper and Veronica was wearing the earrings, necklace and Louboutin heels Logan had given her. The first gifts she'd opened--a very expensive briefcase with her name on it, a Christmas tree ornament of a reindeer wearing glasses and holding a stack of files, and a Dyson handheld vacuum he'd spied her looking at while not stalking her at Target one year--sat on an empty chair.

“I forgot one,” Logan pulled a pouch out of his pocket. “Merry Christmas in July.”

“That's not a thing.”

“Happy quarantine?” He joked.

She made a gagging noise. “That's definitely not a thing.”

“Just open it.”

Veronica shook the contents of the pouch into her hand. Two small heart charms made out of tanzanite shimmered back at her. One flipped over and she saw a small S engraved on the back.

“Logan….” Veronica’s eyes filled with tears. Pregnancy hormones.

“I had them made to match the ones you're wearing.”

Veronica touched the necklace she'd put on only moments ago. The silver chain held two hearts, one in peridot for her birthday, one in Aquamarine for his. Their initials were on the back of each pendant. She unhooked the chain and added the pendants for the girls. Logan got up and hooked it back on her, kissing her neck as he did so.

Veronica moaned as Logan's lips moved to her shoulder and then began kissing down her front. “They're gonna be up soon,” she muttered.

Logan was almost to her breasts when one of their twins started to cry. Veronica reluctantly pulled away and headed for the girls’ room.

“I'll clean this up and come join you,” Logan told her.

Twenty minutes later, Logan heard one of the girls babbling before he entered their room. When they’d found out they were expecting twins, Logan had redesigned the bedrooms so that a wall was knocked out and two small rooms became one big one. He put a sliding screen hidden by a door in the middle of the room so that when they got older, they could have their own spaces. Veronica liked to pull the screen closed to hide the playroom side when she was trying to put the girls down, and this is how the room was when Logan entered.

Veronica sat in the rocker, feeding Savannah. Serena was on the floor on a play mat, knocking blocks over with a baby doll.

“We gotta talk about weaning them soon,” Veronica said, and she sounded exhausted.

Logan sat down beside his youngest--they were fourteen minutes apart--and took the plastic donut she offered him. “I think they’ll be okay.”

“Dada!” Savannah scrambled to get out of Veronica’s arms and to Logan. He scooped her up and Serena immediately began whining because he wasn’t holding her. “You know,” he said to Veronica as he balanced both girls. “There was pepperoni in that pasta salad you ate.”

“I only had the tortellini, olives and a cucumber.”

“No feta?’ he pressed.

“No feta,” she yawned and closed her eyes, still rocking even though she wasn’t holding one of the girls.

“Why don’t you take a nap?” Logan suggested. “I’ve got them.”

She looked relieved. “You sure?”

“I’m sure. Go.”

She gave him a quick kiss and headed down the hall to their bedroom. She collapsed on the bed and was asleep in seconds.

Their bedroom was dark when Veronica woke up. Her phone had been placed on the nightstand beside the bed, and her new shoes taken off and put on the floor. She’d been so exhausted she’d forgotten to take them off. Logan hadn’t covered her with more than a sheet since she’d been so hot lately, and it was tangled around her legs. She texted him a few heart emojis and went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth before setting off to find her family.

They were in the living room, the girls on a giant mat playing with Little People. Logan sat cross legged at one end of the mat, filming them with his phone.

Veronica sat on the couch nearest him. “What’d I miss?”

“Savannah got mac and cheese in her hair so I bathed them. There’s leftovers in the fridge, I’ll heat some up for you if you’re hungry.”

“I can do it.”

“But you’re not gonna,” he got up and kissed the tip of her nose. “Play with the girls.”

Veronica drug her beanbag over to the playmat—getting up and down off the floor was getting difficult—and plopped down to play with her daughters. Honestly, she couldn’t believe she was pregnant again. Like everything else in their relationship, she and Logan hadn’t planned this. She was excited but she was just so tired. She felt more exhausted than when she was carrying the twins.

Just as Veronica was breaking up a battle over the blue-dressed Little Person, Logan appeared with her food.

“Eat,” he handed her the bowl and a fork.

“You spoil me.”

“Isn't that my job?”

“Designing multi-million dollar buildings is your job,” she rolled her eyes.

“That’s a hobby, not a job. The pay is just gravy.”

It was a lot more than gravy, it was obscene the kind of money Logan made. It always bothered her when he called it their money, but she supposed since they’d gotten married that, at least legally, it was hers. She just didn’t like it.

Savannah took the purple-dressed Little Person out of Serena’s car and the crying began.

“Is there a reason we don’t have two of each figure?” Logan wondered as he consoled Serena.

“You have to share,” Veronica told Savannah and then turned to Logan. “They don’t need two of everything. They have to learn to share.”

Logan thought they were a little young for that, but he kept it to himself.

“When things open up,” Veronica mused, “and I go back to work, I’m gonna stalk into Greg’s office wearing those shoes you got me and demand he give everyone a raise.”

“You think twelve-hundred dollar shoes are the way to get a pay raise?”

She shrugged. “He seems to respond to flashy shi—stuff. And you know the raise is about everyone else and not me, but--”

“You think he’ll be afraid of you, all angry and sexy as h-e-double-hockey-sticks?”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “I think he’ll be distracted gawking at me and give me what I want without meaning to.”

“Maybe I should return them? I don’t want him staring at you like a piece of meat.”

“You’ve had them for years, you can’t return them. And you never return anything, anyway.”

“The year I bought those, I knew you would be in New York. I wanted to take you to see The Nutcracker and the Rockettes, all the cheesy Christmas stuff my mother loved. I wanted to share it with you.”

“Logan, we did all that stuff our first year in the city.”

“I know, but I don’t think I told you then why I wanted to do all that stuff.”

“You did try to get me to open the shoes though.”

“You’re so stubborn.”

Veronica took the dog Savannah handed her and made barking noises. She caught Logan staring at them. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“No, you have thoughts. Spill, Echolls.”

“Sill!” Serena said, giggling.

“See?” Veronica laughed. “Out with it.”

“I just….sometimes I can’t believe we’re here.”

“Don’t! You’ll make me cry. Hormones.”

“Pony!” Savannah suddenly cried out. “Pony Pony Pony!”

“Pony’s keeping Grandpa company right now, remember Sweetie?”

“‘Ony?” Serena asked. She hadn’t mastered Ps yet.

“Maybe we’ll Skype with Grandpa and Pony tomorrow,” Logan suggested.

They played with the girls for a few more minutes and then took them to their room to get them ready for bed.

When they were both down, Veronica was hungry again so Logan brought her apple slices with cheese in bed.

“This is such a bad habit,” she said in between shoveling it in.

“Nah, it’s fine. Long as there’s no crumbs in the sheets,” he grabbed a piece of cheese off her plate.

Her snack finished, Veronica ran to the bathroom and then got under the covers, yawning. “In case I forgot to say it earlier, thank you.”

“For the gifts? You thanked me, and you’re welcome.”

“Not just for the gifts,” she reached for his hand under the sheets. “For not giving up on me, on us.”

“I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to.”

She made a face. “Corny.”

“That was barely a two on the Corn Meter.”

“That was a Hallmark Christmas movie eight, thank you.”

“You know, in a Hallmark Christmas movie, they’d call you and I reuniting a Christmas miracle.”

“Oh God,” she groaned.

“It did happen at Christmas.”

She snuggled into his arms, her back to his front. “We always had good Christmases together, even as kids.”

“Remember the poker game? God, I wanted you so bad that night.”

“You hid it well.”

“No, I didn’t, you were just oblivious.” He laughed. “I think Duncan knew.”

“When would you have made a move?” she turned to face him. “You’ve said many times that you had a thing for me, but you never acted on it.”

“I was waiting for an opening. You gave me one that day at the Camelot.”

She kissed him gently and then rolled back over. “‘Night. Love you.”

Veronica was practically snoring before Logan could reply.

At three in the morning, Logan woke up to an empty bed. He found Veronica in the living room, nursing Serena and watching Celebrity Call Center.

“What is this crap?” She gestured to the television. “There’s nothing on. It’s either this or the dreaded Hallmark Christmas movie marathon.

“How long have you been up?” He yawned and sat next to her.

“Twenty minutes or so. I think she’s teething again.”

“Poor little thing.”

“I like the tree,” she nodded towards the twelve-inch lit up tree Logan had put on one of the coffee tables.

“I thought the girls might like it.”

“This girl likes it, too,” she yawned. “Go back to bed, I won’t be long.”

“That’s ok. I’ll sit with you.”

Veronica switched sides while Logan flipped through the channels, settling back on E! “You’re right, there isn’t anything on.”

“Go back to Hallmark for a second. I think it’s the one where the reindeer kicks the creepy ex-boyfriend.”

They watched for a little while, until both Logan and Serena had fallen asleep and Veronica was the only one up.

While Hilarie Burton looked up her boyfriend on the Naughty list on the television, Veronica looked at her family. Not being free to do what she wanted, when she wanted, was driving her insane, but other than that, they were pretty happy.

She carefully carried Serena to her room and settled her in her crib. After checking on Savannah, Veronica returned to the living room to get Logan. He looked so peaceful though, that she couldn’t wake him, so she turned the lights out and settled on the couch beside him. A fleece blanket draped over their laps, she smiled at the multi-colored lights flashing around the room from the tree.

All in all, Christmas in July wasn’t that bad.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, I watched a bunch of (horrible) Hallmark Christmas movies while writing this. And I couldn't remember which one it is the ex boyfriend gets kicked by the reindeer in, but I don't like the boyfriend in the one where Hilarie Burton has the Naughty & Nice list, so I just combined them. (And the boyfriend in the Hilarie Burton one deserves to be kicked, anyway.) I think this is going to be a trilogy. I see one more piece to this saga.


End file.
